Powering down utility bills

ANTIGONISH — All power customers are not created equal in this province.

If you live in one of five small communities running their own power utilities, you’re paying less.

The towns of Antigonish, Berwick, Lunenburg and Mahone Bay and the village of Riverport all buy electricity wholesale from Nova Scotia Power, then distribute it through their own networks.

“We don’t pay federal income taxes, we don’t maximize profit and we also have a relatively compact service territory,” said Don Regan, superintendent of the Berwick Electrical Commission.

“So we’re able to offer power at lower rates than Nova Scotia Power.”

They also don’t have to incorporate the cost of providing electricity to far-flung rural residents into their base rate, as Nova Scotia Power does.

The independent power commissions are all holdovers from the early 20th century. Back then, if communities wanted electricity, they had to make it themselves.

Berwick’s citizens bought the Easson family sawmill property when it closed in 1919 and converted the series of dams used for driving logs into a small power-generating plant. Within a decade, the town was selling electricity to the then provincially owned Nova Scotia Power Commission.

A few years after Berwick lit up, Antigonish town council decided it wanted street lights but didn’t want to pay the rates a private power producer was offering.

So it bought two generators, and within a few years was also selling electricity back to the grid.

Over time, Antigonish’s grid has modernized, and as is the case with the other electric utilities, power production has been replaced by buying it wholesale from Nova Scotia Power.

The infrastructure, however, remained in the hands of the town.

“For some municipalities, it has made sense to hold on to their utilities,” said Antigonish comptroller Tom Wadden.

“The reasons differ, but those that have kept them are compact and have found that they can offer power cheaper by distributing it themselves.”

Antigonish marks up the price of wholesale electricity about 13 to 14 per cent to cover its distribution costs to its 2,800 residential and 500 commercial customers. Its residential rates are about 15 per cent lower than those paid by Nova Scotia Power domestic customers.

“If you didn’t already own the infrastructure, it would be more expensive to go out and build it and try to set up your own authority,” Wadden said.

The five commissions are all in the process of applying to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board to raise their rates to incorporate an increase of three per cent in the price they pay to Nova Scotia Power.